Anna’s first impressions

Anna’s first impressions

Monday, June 29th, 2009

We are finally in Berlin and it’s amazing to see how the dance and dancers take it in and experience Berlin. Today we had our first shooting on the Wall in Berlin and it was amazing to see how the dancers transformed in the process. We are having an interesting first impressions of Berlin and  below I want to share Anna Bellino’s first impressions of Berlin.

 

It seemed to all happen so fast my brain was swimming as I navigated my way from the airport to Kreuzberg (via bus, train, and street) but by the time I was sitting at a cafe table along the sidewalk drinking my post-falafel tea, I felt as much a part of this city as the cobblestones and the crosswalks...apart from the fact that I couldn't actually speak German.

 

Berlin is an old city; there is history in its look and its feel. It is a comfortable city; it suffers from no identity crisis or self-doubt. It is a city that has settled into itself. A city without pretensions. Full of life, full of ART, full of people and vehicles and stores and cafes and buildings - but not overwhelmingly so. It's dirty only as far as cities tend to be, but it's also astonishingly green and lush - wildflowers growing along the U-Bahn tracks and green grassy lawns next to the winding canals and the Spree, shaded by great old weeping willows. Attending the discussion group (Words on the Wall) before coming here, I had heard Berlin compared to New York. I don't see the resemblance: where New York is young, bratty, and over-indulgent, Berlin is old, wizened, and not at all archaic in its ways but astonishingly culturally progressive. It seems to have none of the fast-paced, cutthroat, do-or-die attitude of New York, but rather a laid-back and open atmosphere where bicycles are as common as cars and sidewalk cafes are abundant, with a fair diversity of people/cultures and lifestyles that populate the streets.

 

It's not been so long since the Wall came down.

 

The East Gallery is presently undergoing restorations - they're filling in holes, smoothing down the old chipping paint layered with 20 years worth of Grafitti, and commissioning the artists to re-do their original works on fresh white wall. Some of the old wall still remains. It has it's own kind of beauty, motley and authentic. It felt good to touch it - to feel history beneath my fingertips, to grip the crumbling barrier and know that it was now powerless. It was nice to see what it has become.

 

Upon my first visit to the East Side Gallery, I was at first disappointed to be separated from the wall by a tall wire fence, forced to peek through the intermittent plastic tarps and artists' scaffolding to the the brilliant, freshly painted works. I wanted to walk up to it and see it uninhibited, to touch it and interact with it on my own terms. But I suppose there was some sort of poetic irony in that; my frustrations at not having access to the wall in its restorative state were a kind of gentle microcosm of the incredible frustrations East Berliners must have faced in a much more real sense, prohibited from accessing the Western world.

 

I realize now how lucky I am to be here now, to witness this transformation process - to see the wall in transition once again, 20 years later. Transitions are something I've always found myself personally drawn to but have, over the course of time and - dare I say it, maturity - come to really appreciate. In dance, I have struggled a lot with transitions; they're easy to neglect but so important for connection and flow. In life, they're something I seem to always seem to find myself in. It's the space in-between; it's not easy to rightfully fill, too easy to overlook, and yet so crucial for an artful cohesion...or lack thereof. I've come to realize that it is in fact my favorite space because of its ability be so revealing. Seeing the freshly

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